Don't misunderstand I did not find Azriele arrogant, just the quote from Franjlin.

Franjlin sounds like an old Windows programmer friend of mind. We don't discuss system choices. :)

[PS: Windows 10 just ate his lunch. "hit by some form of the Zeus mal-ware/scare-ware in Chrome..."
So, he's back in a Debian install with Windows in a box working to make up the lost day trying to clean up.
For a person who makes his living programming for Windows, it is costly --lost time, security, peace of mind.]

Last edited by Richard on Sat Apr 22, 2017 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

While one can indeed spend countless hours just "messing around" on a Linux system as an end goal, he speaks as if it is such a big or difficult deal to, let's say, change a theme or icon set, reposition the panel or add applets in Linux. It's not, unless you're forever searching for new themes and customisation bits and bobs.

Is it as easy on Apple systems as it is in Linux? This is a real question as I don't know.

Hi! I joined the forum just to post this. Though I mostly use Porteus now, I've used AntiX, and various Puppies in the past.

I have to chime in about the Franklin Veaux quote. It is pretty dismissive of modern Linux culture, but it is also kinda dead on: modern Linux culture is a tweaking culture. Not computer users, computer tweakers. We spend an enormous amount of time and worry about pimping our ride. WOW, look at my gtk theme! WOW, look at my conky. WOW, look at my dock! Yes it's fun, and I get to show off my good (or abysmal) taste. But it's also kinda pointless.

Back in the DOS days, we didn't worry about our computer's looks... mostly because they were all butt ugly. Everything was Wordperfect, qedit, turbo-C, foxpro. Then came Win 3.1. No one complained about it's looks, Hey, we had dialog boxes, menu bars and combo lists.

We came from a world of DOS, just DOS, no no spam, just DOS. Then we went to a world of Windows... just Windows. Yes you can kinda theme Windows now, but Windows always looks like Windows. There is no XFCE / MATE / Gnome 3 / Cinnamon / Deepin, etc wars. If you run Windows you can have any style you want, as long as it's Windows.

It's baffling. Linux has become a fragmented community that's got dozens of distros with a dozen different DE's. Just to run the same software on the same hardware. With the same panel and applets and dock and window decoration. Have you ever noticed that there is very little difference in the look of LXDE or XFCE or MATE or Cinnamon or Pantheon etc. We are wasting a lot of time futzing around with things that aren't very different. We are scaring away the hoards of Windows users from using a great free OS because it's so confusing for them. What should they install, what should they configure, do they know these buzz words? Have you ever tried to explain Linux to a noob in person, and watch their eyes glaze over when you talk about partitions, or root, or permissions? Windows comes set up. Windows is easy. Windows just works. What the hell's wrong with you Linux weenies anyway?

Can you imagine buying a car and being told that you have to download an eprom patch to make your fuel injection and transmissions systems work. No, the dealership won't help you, but there's an internet forum where you can ask questions. Just remember to follow the rules, and not to ramble, and don't cross-post and only one topic per post. And read the fine manual, dumbass.

We buy a computer to do our homework, or manage our household, or run a business, or surf the internet, or watch movies, or play video games, or maybe even write software. Sure, I want my system to look nice. So give me a choice of 20 wallpapers, 5 bitchin' themes and make the system figure out the rest of it. Vivaldi manages to make everything color coordinate. So can Linux.

mjaksen writes, to me anyway, a lot of sense. I came up through the same path, DOS, Win 3.1, a brief time with Apple at work, a series of Windows updates, not all of them improvements, Then, while using XP, I was introduced to Linux. Tried various options - and as mjaksen says, there are many. Too many ? Yes, I think so. A problem with LInux, is that is fairly easy to experiment, too easy. Thus we have umpteen variations on the original development from Unix, a whole heap of differing
Linux systems to choose from. Certainly confusing, and scary, for an immigrant from a Microsoft environment. I am possibly fortunate in being directed to Mepis, then MX.

One should not be too critical of experimenters and developers, who are improving (sometimes) and creating new Linux variations. But to a person coming in, to a low cost, but new system, the multiple options are frightening. In the long term, who knows where we are going?

...We buy a computer to do our homework, or manage our household, or run a business, or surf the internet, or watch movies, or play video games, or maybe even write software.

The type of user you are referring to matters a lot.

If it was so much easier to get Linux pre-installed in computers that we buy, you might get more Linux users who were only interested in using their computer as a tool or appliance. In such instances, those users might not be tweakers or so pre-occupied with customising their machines.

I am currently in the process of switching away from Windows to Linux, with Win7 as my "final" Windows incarnation and MX-16 (after a stint with Arch and MX-15) my OS of choice, with Win7 running in a VM as fallback.

To be completely frank, I would never go away from Windows if MS had not bungled update after update after update. I had some hopes for Windows 10 but when it eventually arrived it became clear that it was an ever bigger no-go than 8.x. So an alternative is clearly needed -- but what?

The main reason why I'd not leave Windows "unforced" is that I have a polished, highly optimised work environment that let's me do my work as efficiently as I can make it. It is quite possible to achieve the same (or perhaps even a higher) level of efficiency with Linux, no doubt about that -- but doing so means weeks, perhaps months of disruption and loss of productivity. I now know that I have to bite that bullet so I will, but I am not keen on it.

So Linux it's gotta be -- but which one? I am lucky in that I feel at home at the command line... the simplest of DEs will do the job and I have never looked at anything other than basic XFCE. But even if ones settles for one of the XFCE-based distros -- do you use ext4 or btrfs? Which kernel -- the included one or Liquorix or ...? And so on. Choice is good if you can intelligently choose from the various options but it is utterly bewildering if you can't.

The amount of stuff I have over the decades learned to do with Apple DOS, CP/M, MS-DOS and finally Windows always came in small, manageable doses, one new technology, new feature or new product at a time (making a 440hz sound with my Apple was a grand achievement... nowadays I'm happily handling 25000+ tracks of music in various codecs, just to give one example). Switching from Windows to another OS involves readjusting many of these things -- all more or less at the same time -- and all the while you do not know whether what you're doing is best practice or whether you're falling from one newbie trap into the next.

Linux (on the distro, not the kernel, level) appears too fragmented for many users (another reason not to switch for many people I know, though never for me, is the prevalence of MS Office and its file formats). That fragmented landscape held me back for many years and it is still something that I am not comfortable with. There is a concept in programming language design called orthogonality (meaning roughly that you do not need umpteen different ways to achieve the same thing) -- modern Linux distros are some of the least orthogonal systems I have ever used. Nevertheless, I agree with the general sentiment of this thread, that MX-16 is my favourite distro: I want a system that is safe and stable, allows me to work as efficiently as possible and needs almost no maintenance and whose inner workings I understand. I do hope that MX will deliver but it is quite possible that there's a better alternative out there. I'll never know:-)

I stumbled onto MX Linux when I was trying to load Lubuntu onto some old Compaq Presario laptops. I tried several Ubuntu-related distros to no avail.

AntiX seemd like a possibility for these old computers, and I'd used it before, but ... it was pretty Spartan, and I want to be able to put these and other computers into the hands of regular people, who need a comfortable Desktop Environment. I tried MX 16 and Bob's your uncle! Worked fine, and the DE seemed to be thoughtfully designed for new users. Perfect!

I personally enjoy the wide variety of distros. The diversity releases creativity and enables everyone to find a niche.

It seems overwhelming at first, when you go to DistroWatch and see the hundreds of possibilities. In fact,though, once you specify your needs, the number of distros is whittled down considerably.

If you want a Microsoft-like unirormity, then default Ubuntu is the way to go. You might not like some aspects, but it's a reasonable choice and it's got a huge following. For commercial applications, there is Red Hat.

My needs are different. I want:
- a distro that is not too heavy, which can run on old computers, back to Pentium 4 and Pentium M.
- a huge user base, with forums and answers to support questions
- stability and continuity. Many distros seem to be one- or two-person operations which disappear when the developers run out of energy.
- a focus on making the environment comfortable for new users.

I have settled on:
- Ubuntu Mate. Preferred since it is close to the Ubuntu mothership and they seem to have a lot of enthusiasm.
- Lubuntu. For very old computers, since it requires so few resources. Rather barebones though
- Linux Mint Mate. My first distro. Focussed on user friendliness, but it has a problematic relationship with Ubuntu and the team doesn't seem to be as technically adept as the Ubuntu Mate team.

I like what I've seen so far about MX Linux. I like the independent thinking about the user experience, and the friendly community. I like the fact that it runs fast and seems to work on older hardware. The small size of the user base (as compared to Ubuntu) would make it hard for me to use on computers that I give away. But we'll see. I definitely like the spirit of the MX community.

I ran through the parade of operating systems described by other graybeards in previous comments: CP/M, DOS from 2.x, AmigaDOS, Windows from 3.1 on, HP-UX (HP's version of UNIX), MPE-xL (HP's proprietary OS). I feel I'm in hog heaven with Linux - all the variety, access to the command line, and some highly developed user interfaces. This is a wonderful time to be a UNIX/Linux fan.